Apr 14 New and old lightweight coveralls

With a few exceptions, we have bought all of our kids heavy-duty outerwear and boots at secondhand shops or siivouspäivä (a city-wide yardsale that happens twice a year) here in Turku. You just can't beat the prices, and the quality of the outerwear is so good that even secondhand items are practically like new.

Well, with the winter changing so quickly into spring, yesterday I got out Sterling's välikausihallarit (lightweight coveralls) from last year only to find that it was way too small! So he wore his heavy snowsuit that day, and when I was at Prisma later I decided to just pick up a pair of lightweight coveralls while I was there. How expensive could it be to buy them new, right?

Ninety euros. That's how expensive. And that wasn't even the most expensive one! So I bought it and then made a commitment to go to the secondhand shop today just in case I could find something in his size (it's sometimes hard to find exactly in-season things at the secondhand shop because everyone else in town is doing the same thing).

I was successful! Here is what I found (the left two items):

From left: secondhand Lassie brand lightweight coveralls, 12€. Secondhand Reima brand snowsuit, 25€. Then on the right is the new Reima brand lightweight coveralls, 90€. So for less than half the price of one pair of new lightweight coveralls, I got this year's lightweight coveralls taken care of as well as next year's snowsuit. So I will be returning the new lightweight coveralls.

Like I said, these things are great quality, so I understand why they're so expensive new. But it feels so good to get something almost-new for a fraction of the price!